Austrian Elections & Politics 5.0 (Burgenland state election - January 26)

[Tender Branson]

The ÖVP says they were recently hacked (by the Russians ?) and more than 1.300 gigabytes of data was stolen from their servers ...

https://kurier.at/politik/inland/absolut-plausibel-was-experten-zum-hacker-angriff-auf-oevp-sagen/400597691

I call it bullsh*t, because they simply want to divert attention from all their recent scandals and want to portray themselves as victims instead.

[rob in cal]

Tender, I was in Innsbruck yesterday and didn't see many campaign posters at all. Maybe because I was in the touristy altstadt?

[Tender Branson]

Tender, I was in Innsbruck yesterday and didn't see many campaign posters at all. Maybe because I was in the touristy altstadt?

I think it really depends ... here for example, they are everywhere - mostly around shopping centers, roads and traffic circles, where (working) people are.

Maybe there are fewer posters in the touristy inner-city areas.

How did you like Innsbruck (aside from the weather, which took a cold turn yesterday and today, just 6-12 degrees Celsius) ?

[Tender Branson]

I have cast my postal ballot today, for the Greens.

[Tender Branson]

128.000 postal ballots have been sent out already in Vienna, with 3 weeks until the election.

That's more than double the amount of 2017.

[rob in cal]

Tender we enjoyed innsbruck. Walked around the altstadt, went to the hofburg museum, saw the Dom. I love how the city is surrounded by mountains.  Then back to Garmisch after the day trip.

[parochial boy]

Dabei machte ich eine einladende Handbewegung zum schwarzen Ledersofa. Doch der Mann, der an die Türe gelehnt stand, schüttelte nur sanft seinen Kopf, weiter in die Leere blickend.

😂😂😂

Oh my god, he's so creepy

[Tender Branson]

Tender we enjoyed innsbruck. Walked around the altstadt, went to the hofburg museum, saw the Dom. I love how the city is surrounded by mountains.  Then back to Garmisch after the day trip.

Cool. I'll pick up my sister from the Salzburg Airport on Sunday, if you are in the area, please let me know.

Dabei machte ich eine einladende Handbewegung zum schwarzen Ledersofa. Doch der Mann, der an die Türe gelehnt stand, schüttelte nur sanft seinen Kopf, weiter in die Leere blickend.

😂😂😂

Oh my god, he's so creepy

WTF is this ?

[parochial boy]

Dabei machte ich eine einladende Handbewegung zum schwarzen Ledersofa. Doch der Mann, der an die Türe gelehnt stand, schüttelte nur sanft seinen Kopf, weiter in die Leere blickend.

😂😂😂

Oh my god, he's so creepy

WTF is this ?

Kurz's official biography. Out next week!

[Tender Branson]

Dabei machte ich eine einladende Handbewegung zum schwarzen Ledersofa. Doch der Mann, der an die Türe gelehnt stand, schüttelte nur sanft seinen Kopf, weiter in die Leere blickend.

😂😂😂

Oh my god, he's so creepy

WTF is this ?

Kurz's official biography. Out next week!

This book sounds like fun.

«So entpuppte sich Kurz als ein Baby, das auf der Überholspur fuhr. (...) Die ersten kompletten Sätze sprach der kleine Sebastian Kurz bereits mit einem Jahr und stellte damit viele andere Kinder in den Schatten. Es waren keine Sprechversuche, die er machte, sondern er sprach bereits ganze Sätze.»

LOL.

[Tender Branson]

New OGM/Kleine Zeitung poll for the Nov. 24 state election in Styria:



ÖVP: +3% compared with the 2015 state election
SPÖ: -6%
FPÖ: -1%
Greens: no change
KPÖ: +1%
NEOS: +1%
Others: +2%

Voters do not like the decision by ÖVP+FPÖ+Greens to hold the state elections half a year earlier than planned, but the exact numbers are behind a paywall.

SPÖ+KPÖ voted against earlier elections this year and wanted to finish the 5-year term in May 2020.

The SPÖ has already unveiled their campaign slogan: "Real Styrians finish what they started."

[Tender Branson]

It seems Styrian voters are punishing the parties that voted for early state elections, because a OGM/Krone poll last month showed the ÖVP at 33%, the FPÖ at 27% and the Greens at 10%. The SPÖ has gained 3% in the last month.

Just like Austrian voters are punishing SPÖ+FPÖ for the early federal elections.

[Tender Branson]

New Market poll for the "Standard" (n=800, Sept. 2-4, CATI/online):

34% ÖVP (-1)
22% SPÖ (n.c.)
21% FPÖ (+1)
11% Greens (+1)
  9% NEOS (-1)
  2% NOW (+1)
  1% Others (-1)

https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000108335531/kurz-faellt-in-umfrage-zurueck-oevp-fuehrt-aber-deutlich

[Hnv1]

I went through the bios of a lot of candidates and it seems Austrians don’t care much for formal education. Why is that? Austrian politicians have a really subpar bio when it comes to academic qualifications

[Tender Branson]

I went through the bios of a lot of candidates and it seems Austrians don’t care much for formal education. Why is that? Austrian politicians have a really subpar bio when it comes to academic qualifications

Why should it matter that major politicians have an academic degree ? You don't need that to lead a country in a proper manner. A high school degree is certainly enough. You only need to have street smarts. Most of the real work is done by their aides anyway in the background (and most of them have an academic degree). A lot of people with a higher degree are mostly smug anyway and have no connection to ordinary working people (see the douche Macron).

[Tender Branson]

I went through the bios of a lot of candidates and it seems Austrians don’t care much for formal education. Why is that? Austrian politicians have a really subpar bio when it comes to academic qualifications

It should be noted that 6/8 frontrunners (7/9 with Peter Pilz) have a completed academic degree from a university.

Only Kurz and Hofer have no academic degrees (even though Hofer has a chief engineer degree as an aerospace technician).

Only Kurz has just a high school degree (he studied a few semesters at university, but never finished his studies. He said he might do so later.)

[Hnv1]

I went through the bios of a lot of candidates and it seems Austrians don’t care much for formal education. Why is that? Austrian politicians have a really subpar bio when it comes to academic qualifications

Why should it matter that major politicians have an academic degree ? You don't need that to lead a country in a proper manner. A high school degree is certainly enough. You only need to have street smarts. Most of the real work is done by their aides anyway in the background (and most of them have an academic degree). A lot of people with a higher degree are mostly smug anyway and have no connection to ordinary working people (see the douche Macron).

Well I think a leader needs some pedigree of knowledge of the world that exceeds that gained by a high school degree or a degree in communications from some poor university. Having a president who went to Penn State or a PM that went to the university of East Angllia will be a bit more than a trivia fact. Yale law school or oxford PPE programs are also pretty much set on qualifying future politicians.

But Germany is also similar in that matter so I guess it’s a cultural thing

[Tender Branson]

I went through the bios of a lot of candidates and it seems Austrians don’t care much for formal education. Why is that? Austrian politicians have a really subpar bio when it comes to academic qualifications

Why should it matter that major politicians have an academic degree ? You don't need that to lead a country in a proper manner. A high school degree is certainly enough. You only need to have street smarts. Most of the real work is done by their aides anyway in the background (and most of them have an academic degree). A lot of people with a higher degree are mostly smug anyway and have no connection to ordinary working people (see the douche Macron).

Well I think a leader needs some pedigree of knowledge of the world that exceeds that gained by a high school degree or a degree in communications from some poor university. Having a president who went to Penn State or a PM that went to the university of East Angllia will be a bit more than a trivia fact. Yale law school or oxford PPE programs are also pretty much set on qualifying future politicians.

But Germany is also similar in that matter so I guess it’s a cultural thing

Yes, it's cultural.

In the sense that in the US and some other Anglo countries it is mostly expected within families that the child goes to college after high school.

This is not the case in Germany or Austria, or at least has not been for the past decades and is only now more of a factor among the well-educated and academic families (which has never been a high share here).

Most parents value(d) real, hard work and a vocational, technical education/apprenticeship much more than an academic education. Germany/Austria/Switzerland are therefore more based on century-old Handwerk (= craftsmanship) than academia.

[Tender Branson]

Salzburg's FPÖ-leader Marlene Svazek (27) re-elected with 94% today.



In her speech, she was also very critical of her own party base:

The party leader called for decency: "It is not necessary for us to constantly deal with ourselves, that we have to talk about social-media postings that are offensive, racist and in any way Nazi-glorifying. Some postings are simply embarrassing because of the spelling mistakes, because we are at the same time the party that demands German courses for foreigners, which is part of the party program."

https://salzburg.orf.at/stories/3011801

[parochial boy]

Gonna have to say that the Austrian attitude towards university education seems a lot healthier than the US/UK class-ridden obsession with overpromoting entitled rich kids from elite universities. A habit that would seem to play no small part in the current mess that both those countries are in.

[Tender Branson]

The FPÖ had their official campaign kickoff event today in Upper Austria @ a shopping mall, where both Hofer, Kickl and Haimbuchner delivered speeches to the crowd.

Apparently, Kickl's speech was extremely well-received by the crowd and got minutelong standing ovations:







https://www.krone.at/1992039

[Tender Branson]

The SPÖ is proposing not only a comeback of their "20.000+" policy to employ 50+ aged long-term unemployed (under Chancellor Kern, then killed by ÖVP-FPÖ), but a general federal jobs guarantee for all long-term unemployed (currently some 100.000 of the more than 300.000 unemployed).

https://kurier.at/politik/inland/spoe-will-jobgarantie-fuer-alle-langzeitarbeitslosen/400599110

Pretty good idea. I have supported this all along.

Kern's 20.000+ program also had a positive effect on lowering the number of long-term, old unemployed while he was in office (even though ÖVP and SPÖ disagree whether it was the program or the good economy at the time).

Anyway, it's good if old, long-term unemployed get some perspective again by being employed by the communities, doing office work, helping out with community work, school crossing guards etc. etc. - rather than being at home all day doing nothing and receiving unemployment/welfare money and waiting for retirement. It's about dignity.

[Tender Branson]

Another election tool with 34 questions in English:

https://www.voteswiper.org/en/austria/2019-austrian-legislative-election

I got KPÖ, followed by Change, followed by the Greens.

NEOS last.

[Hnv1]

Another election tool with 34 questions in English:

https://www.voteswiper.org/en/austria/2019-austrian-legislative-election

I got KPÖ, followed by Change, followed by the Greens.

NEOS last.

I got FPÖ followed by ÖVP. Surprised as I would have voted for the NEOS who I got almost at the bottom

[Tender Branson]

New OGM federal election poll for the battleground state of Styria:



Styria 2017:

31.5% ÖVP
29.6% FPÖ
25.1% SPÖ
  5.0% NEOS
  3.9% Jetzt
  2.8% Greens
  2.1% Others